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statement on working with other orgs/activism

There are a variety of “adoptee rights” organizations out there, both nationally and working state by state.

I do not personally endorse any of them.

In the past, I worked with both Bastard Nation and the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. I have resigned from both.

Previously I linked a variety of state and international organizations in my sidebar, I no longer do.

There may still be some few state organizations working to ‘hold the line’ on nothing less than genuine clean open records bills, but sadly, I’ve learned the hard way that rhetoric and actions do not always align when it matters most.

There are few resources to even build a criteria for what a “clean bill” means, though those interested may want to examine some of Bastard Nation’s early writings, the wording of what the Oregon voters voted on back in 1998’s Measure 58*, (not the way the legislation finally played out with the “contact preference form” added.)

“Upon receipt of a written application to the state registrar, any adopted person 21 years of age and older born in the state of Oregon shall be issued a certified copy of his/her unaltered, original and unamended certificate of birth in the custody of the state registrar, with procedures, filing fees, and waiting periods identical to those imposed upon non-adopted citizens of the State of Oregon pursuant to ORS 432.120 and 432.146. Contains no exceptions.”

I may eventually post a piece of model legislation, as there are no examples I can fully personally endorse and point at here, but that is not tonight’s task.

Moreover, just as women’s sufferage was originally viewed as an important strategic step towards the broader goal of women’s liberation (only to later, particularly after being achieved, become an end unto itself such that the goal of women’s liberation remains to this day, unfulfilled) for Bastards, the restoration of open records via legislation for adult adoptees (still no restoration of records access to minors) has been viewed as both a pragmatic “compromise” but also a important strategic step towards the larger goal of full Bastard liberation, but not the end all be all in and of itself.

The whole of Bastard rights work, is larger and deeper than being purely confined to legislative work. Full Bastard equality enshrined in law is vital, as a first step, but even that is not the whole of the work in relation to the Bastardized condition.

For Bastard activists, it’s a caveat emptor field, made all the more difficult in that to my knowledge, no organization is doing the educational work necessary to aid those new to Bastard rights activism in any ongoing or methodological way that would help new people understand what came before, the current condition of most states, or even how to begin.

Similar to my blog, most of what’s out there ‘begins in the middle.’

If you are just starting out and trying to figure out how best to get involved, I don’t even have a basic written history I can point you at in terms of how we got here and what Bastard activism has and does (and does not) entail. Most of what has been accomplished has not been written about either in real time, nor comprehensively thereafter.

I have added a new section to the sidebar, “Activists Working to monitor and respond to legislative threats in states that have opened records” to list the one organization founded to try to to keep tabs on the status of Oregon’s open records law and fight back any further threats to it (as we saw in Spring of 2011) but I list such more as a courtesy or pointing at a potential resource/the idea at least, of a model for ongoing monitoring that should be a crucial part of Bastard rights work any state that lays claim to any form of having had a successful open records campaign.

Baby Love Child the blog, is a GDI (God-Damn-Independent) voice, devoid of any organizational affiliation.

If you are new to Bastard human/civil/identity rights work, I can only strongly suggest reading through whatever you can here and elsewhere, and making your own determinations about who you will and will not work with as best you can, always evaluating those decisions by keeping an eye on the actual goals you are attempting to achieve.

That said, I also caution you to look beyond any given groups’ words to its actual track record, and make your personal determinations in light of such.

No one is offering a viable “intake path” to adoption activism 101 that I’m aware of at this point in time.

Some of what attempts I’ve made towards putting something along those lines together have not ended well.

* There is a lot more writing that can and should be done in relation to Oregon’s wording, but it won’t be in this post. If/when I get to it later, I’ll add a link here.